


I Think of You Even When I Wish I Wasn't

by acloudysky



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Post-The Vault (Final Fantasy XIV), introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22901770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acloudysky/pseuds/acloudysky
Summary: "He had seen now countless people die horrible, terrible, gruesome deaths but he could not stand to see Aymeric beaten and bruised and alive to feel every second of it."OrAn extremely indulgent character study of what and how Estinien thinks about Aymeric while taking care of him the night after the Vault.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	I Think of You Even When I Wish I Wasn't

It is because Aymeric has never truly broken, has never had to discard everything he knew about himself and the world and build all those notions and conceptions again from the few pieces still large enough to not slip through his fingers, that he cannot steal himself, that he cannot desensitize himself. 

It is because he constantly bends almost to the point of breaking only to then bounce back and repair the cracks left in him with something less stable than the pieces that were lost, the pieces that have been constantly and consistently falling away for all of his adult life, maybe the entirety of his life, that he takes every pang of guilt, every stab of regret, directly to his heart. 

It is because of all that and the selflessness too pure in the core of Aymeric's being that he has been dry heaving for the last half an hour, anything his stomach had to actually dispose of long since brought up. 

At least, those were the conclusions Estinien had come to. 

Maybe the rest of Ishgard would not come to those conclusions. Maybe Aymeric had affected his heart in a way that made these moments, moments where Aymeric was raw, unbound by appearance, so desperately in pain, seer themselves into Estinien's brain. 

Where Estinien shut down in the face of grief and terror Aymeric burned with an intensity that threatened at every opportunity to consume all he was as an individual. He would die as Ishgard's martyr or live as it's saviour. No future existed where Aymeric continued to live in tandem to Ishgard staying as it was. There was something in him that would not let him be anything else. All selfish desires held in him always, without fail, gave way for the good of the people, the good of some far for future where there is no more suffering in Ishgard. Estinien’s wholly selfish desire for revenge left him hard, the only suffering he chose to contend with was his own. 

(At least, that had been true until the moment Aymeric burrowed under his skin and took root in someplace miraculously not calloused to the world.) 

Here, beaten and bruised by the leaders of the state he had championed for as long as he'd had the ability to conceive such a notion, Aymeric was none of those things. He looked as Estinien figured he must have looked after the destruction of Ferndale: scared and tired yet coiled so tightly with tension that his mind would not let him rest. 

Estinien can feel the tension under Aymeric's skin with every labored breath the other man takes. He has one had on his side in the only space he can find not covered with lash marks or burns from the night prior and the other holding Aymeric's hair away from his face. 

Looking at Aymeric's back, bare and clear as it was in the pale moonlight that shone through the bathroom window, would have enraged Estinien under any normal circumstance. The memory of it may come morning but now it only hardened his resolve to stay by Aymeric's side regardless of his protests. 

And protest he had. Estinien did not curse their companions that had decided to take Aymeric at his word when he said he was okay, that a little rest was all he needed. He made himself too easy to believe. The false earnest that painted his face had been all too deceptive, the steadiness of his voice a feat of acting that any professional would be proud of. There was hardly a physical tell to alert any of them. Estinien only knew something was wrong because years of knowing Aymeric left him with no doubt that the events of the day would leave him in ruins. 

Estinien suspected Lucia had known too and had trusted him to take care of their steadfast leader while she handled the more public facing crisis. Those had been the roles they played for as long as they’d known each other. Aymeric was their central star. 

Maybe, at first, he saw Aymeric as foolishly hopeful. He’d lost his faith in Ishgard the moment he realized not a single soul in the high houses had cared about, or even remembered, the destruction of Ferndale. He’d been too angry for far too long at the point when he and Aymeric met to buy into the future he thought Aymeric dreamed of. 

Yet, where everyone else had cast him aside as a lost cause (save his adopted father whose belief in him was rooted at least partially in guilt) Aymeric seemed magnetized to him. Their poles so oppositely aligned that they could do nothing but gravitate towards one another. There were surely other people who had ideals far more in line with his own, yet the other man quickly wormed his way under Estinien’s cold outer shell. 

He could not ask why because that would be admitting he cared, in some measure, about how Aymeric felt about him. What he did know was that at some point he had started to believe not in the perfect Ishgard preached in the cathedrals but in an Ishgard where Aymeric could be happy. 

He did not believe they were the same thing. 

It would, if he was lucky, be an Ishgard he could care for too. 

He detested being in love. 

It was only because he loved Aymeric that looking at him now gnawed at him in the same way thinking about his long dead family did. It was only because he loved Aymeric that he wanted Thordan and his thrice damned Heaven’s Ward dead almost as much as he wanted the dread wyrm himself dead. It was only because he loved Aymeric that he too wanted to empty the contents of his stomach upon seeing how much pain Aymeric was in. He had seen now countless people die horrible, terrible, gruesome deaths but he could not stand to see Aymeric beaten and bruised and alive to feel every second of it. 

Not loving Aymeric was an impossibility that he had accepted long ago. 

That was why he was here, after all. That was why he caught Aymeric when he’d lost his balance as soon as the front door of the de Borel manor closed behind them. That was why he’d helped him out of all of his clothing except for the leggings he wore under his armor, taking notice of every wince and gasp when he’d stretch too far or something would snag on what Estinien would soon discover to be a myriad of injuries hidden beneath that ornate shell. That was why he half carried Aymeric to the bathroom after his stomach first turned on him. 

Estinien knew it was not just physical pain, the after effects of the Vault, that made him ill. Aymeric had told him before, in moments similar to this one but lesser in their intensity, that in the early days of his climb of the Temple Knights ladder he’d taken the death of every person under him as his own fault. There was always, surely, something he could have done to prevent it. 

There was no doubt that he blamed himself for Haurchefant’s death even as the man lay dying in his arms. 

They don’t say anything to each other even after Aymeric’s stomach finally gives up its revolt. Estinien helps him to bed, with a gentleness reserved only for Aymeric, without saying a word. When he notices, after they’ve made it to the bedroom and he’d safely set Aymeric down on the bed and stripped him of his pants so that he could see the full range of injuries that need to be addressed before either could even think about falling asleep, that Aymeric looked terrified as he turned for the door only then did he dare break the still, delicate silence of the night. 

“I won’t be long.” 

He isn’t. His trip only takes him to the closet down the hall where he knew some general purpose potions and salves were kept. There’s one that will stop his companion’s wounds from becoming infected until he can see a chirurgeon. He’d all but refused early in the evening. 

Maybe, on any other night, his heart would have fluttered in some sickeningly teenage-esque delirium at the prospect of Aymeric laying underneath him, nearly naked and vulnerable, completely at his mercy. 

He had to ignore the winces and gasps, the groans of protest, as he applied the salve to every even remotely open wound he could find. 

Aymeric’s face is the only part of his body left unharmed. Every single injury is easily hidden by the armor he usually wears, as if telling him that if he wanted anyone to know the cruelty he’d been put through he’d have to make all of his suffering readily apparent, he’d have to make himself feel exposed and weak to find any kind of sympathy. Even then it was not guaranteed.

Estinien knew this meant he would be the only person to ever truly know.

That was his own personal hell. Every time Aymeric showed him any ounce of vulnerability it only ensnared Estinien more. Every time Aymeric looked at him with eyes full of raw emotion it only made Estinien realize Aymeric deserved someone better than him. He could not leave Aymeric. It would break both of their hearts and but staying, dealing with the unattainability that was a happiness Aymeric deserved and that Estinien had not known in more than twenty years, only hurt him too. 

(It would not occur to Estinien until much later that maybe he deserved that happiness as well.) 

That night, after exhaustion finally over took Aymeric and he drifted off, Estinien lay beside him in his selfish selflessness. Their arms just barely touched, a reminder that Estinien was still there if Aymeric should wake and need him.

**Author's Note:**

> One night, I was reading some Borges and then fell asleep in what would be a very not restful nap. I woke up and this concept was all I could think about so now it's here and that's pretty cool. I just have a lot of thoughts about why Estinien is the way he is and the nuance of his relationship with Aymeric (either romantic or platonic but I obviously prefer the former).  
> If you too love thinking about how Estinien thinks you can follow me on twitter @sweetotters. Or not. It's really up to you.


End file.
